Global warming alarmist sites tried to pooh-pooh the conference before it started, whining that “no real scientists” would show up, as if actually having a Ph.D. in a science and practicing science professionally was not enough to be a “real” scientist; you also have to have drunk Al Gore’s kool-aid to be real.

Unfortunately for the “debate is over” crowd, as more data arrives it continues to contradict everything they predict, and therefore the anti-free market policy proposals that they and their econo-moron political masters believe. We should not forget that the global warming alarmist movement is in no small part simply another attack on first world economies brought to you by some of the same politicians and unions who tried and failed to destroy free trade in the past decade.

Fortunately for those of us who don’t want to let these people destroy our way of life, the media may be slightly stirring from its unquestioning slumber on this issue. Though the Washington Post, CNN, etc., didn’t actually want to cover this conference, they did. And they didn’t slam it quite as hard as I’m sure they would have liked to.

The NY Times, like all leftist organizations, tries to tarnish free-market events by questioning the source of their financial support, as if contributions from companies who don’t want government to destroy the economy were somehow unethical, and as if contributions from leftist organizations are somehow saintly. Here’s the NY Times coverage of the conference:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html?

Certain web sites including, unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal, talk about Heartland being “funded by ExxonMobil”. While it is true that Heartland has in the past received some money from Exxon, the company was one of a large number of donors, both corporate and individual. It’s absolutely not as if Heartland is a media arm of a corporation. Companies and people support Heartland, just as they support Cato, Heritage, CEI, or any other of the many free-market or conservative think tanks because they believe in the principles that the think-tanks propound. If they believe in the principles because those principles are good for their bottom line, so what? What’s the difference between that and leftists who support leftist think tanks because they agree in principles, or because they hope the think tanks will help attack those who participate in our capitalist free-market system? Would someone claim that an environmental organization is a shill for the left-wing foundation that supports it? No, the foundation supports it because it believes in the message. We should consistently point out the hypocrisy in these critiques of sources of funding for free-market organizations by groups or writers who never ask the same question about the other side and never allow for the possibility that people (especially non-leftists) actually fund things they believe in.

[I should point out, however, that the ever-present “Center for Climate Strategies” is in fact a wholly-owned shill for a radical environmental group based in Pennsylvania. Yet state governments across the country are hiring them to “coordinate” development of climate policy. Here’s an article by Paul Chesser that’s one example of many of CSS’s insidious work.]

It is going to be a long uphill battle to overcome Algore-ism. It’s emotionally appealing to want to “save the planet”. But what if the planet isn’t in need of saving and instead what the do-gooders or do-not-so-gooders accomplish is to cause our children to have, for the first time in the history of the modern Western world, a worse quality of life than we have?

Many climate change alarmists suggest a “precautionary principle”, basically that the cost of trying to do something is a lot lower than the cost of doing nothing would be if global warming is real. Far too few people are challenging either side of that statement. First, the costs of most policy suggestions are truly enormous. And second, the risk of doing nothing is almost certainly much lower than they want you to believe. After all, humans have been through large climate changes before and we’re still here. We just adapt. Indeed, over the most recent warming period, deaths from heat in the US declined steadily over time as we learn not to do stupid things and as air conditioning becomes more common and cheaper. Just in the same way that liberals assume changes in tax policy won’t change people’s economic behavior, they assume that changes in climate won’t change people’s behavior. It’s simply stupid, but they have to do that in order to scare people.

It’s time to stop being scared, and I congratulate the Heartland Institute (on whose Board of Directors I once served) on taking a great first step in bringing “skepticism” front and center of the public debate. The fact that so many alarmists are criticizing the conference is yet another measure if its importance.

“The Czech Republic’s attention magnet has a name: Vaclav Klaus. As he happened to be re-elected not long ago, the Czechs got their piece of attention, too.” – NEWS

You are visitor No. 414,583 and counting. Thank you for visiting and leaving your comments in the comment sections below. Now what exactly are the Vaclav Klaus Climate Joke Awards, you want to know? Or who is Vaclav Klaus and why is he being singled out here and so honored with his name on these satirical yet serious awards?

Aha, you see, Václav Klaus [pronounced ‘va : tslaf ‘klaus] is the honorable and distinguished president of the Czech Republic who is currently into his second 5-year term, so this awards blog has a long shelf life, at least for the next 5 years. But this awards blog is not about the good country of the Czech Republic, who citizens are good honest people who know a thing or two about global warming and climate change. No, this awards blog is named after Vaclav Klaus because he recently told a reporter for the Associated Press in New York City during the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change (sic) sponsored by the Heartland Insitute (sic) funded in part by the oil industry (no sic here), and this man, this human being, this leader of a country in Europe, he told the AP reporter and we quote his now infamous words:

“Climate is just a joke”, he told the AP. Instead of worrying about global warming, he went on, people should just go about their business and realize that any warming is just part of the natural process. [Associated Press report, March 5, 2008]

There’s more of the quote here: “I am afraid that global warming alarmists are tyring to kill the freedom of people and prosperity,” Klaus reportedly told the reporter in the report reported in newspapers worldwide that day.

So (stupid drum roll here), these newly-constituted Vaclav Klaus Climate Joke Awards will be given out through the year, and through out the years, any day of the week will do, just send in your nominations and we will clear them with the awards committee, and these awards will be given out to people espouse very stupid notions about the very real reality of global warming and the possible impact it may have on future generations of Earthlings (include the human species).

THEREFORE it is hereby instituted the very first Vaclav Klaus Climate Joke Award goes to:

VACLAV KLAUS, president of the Czech Republic, for his stupid comments to the Associated Press in New York City in March of the year 4,000,000,008 (that’s billon as in Four Billion and Eight, Cosmic Time).

BILL GRAY, another Heartland conference naysayer, according to the AP, a hurricane specialist from Colorado State Universtiy, who gave a talk entitled “We Are Not In A Climate Crisis”. [Actually, the talk was titled “We Are In A Meeting Room in a Hotel in Manhattan” but the AP did not report that in a sidebar.]

Dr Gray, the holder of a PH.D., went on to tell the AP reporter: “It’s sort of like the field of meteorology and climatology’s been hijacked by these modelers that have come along and said these things,” said Gray, who said recent warming was a blip in “a recent spate of Ice Ages coming and going.”

PRIZE NUMBER THREE goes to:

JOSEPH BAST, president of the Heartland Institute, whose unshaven face bear[d]s a very similar resemblance to the president of another country on this Earth — no, not the Czech Republic, but go head and guess! — and who told the AP that same day:

“Some of the scientists here believe we are entering into a cooling period, and that’s just based on well-known solar cycles,» Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast, told the AP. He said the conference showed that, despite what “Al Gore and a bunch of other people» might say, there is no scientific consensus on global warming.”

So there you have it, the first three awardees of the International Vaclav Klaus Climate Joke Awards. YOUR NOMINATIONS FOR THE NEXT ROUND OF HONOREES (with quotes from their comments in the media, with references, please, so we can fact-czech everything here) may be sent in to the comments section below, with your name listed or anonymously. Please, no SPAM.

Please list the name of your nominee, his or her position or affiliation, and the exact quote of what he or she said, and a citation reference to prove that he or she indeed said that, or was quoted as saying it. Fact-czechers are on stand by!

DISCLAIMER:

Naming these awards after Vaclav Klaus — the honorable, well-educated and distinguised president of the Czech Republic, who grew up in the upper-middle class residential Vinohrady neighborhood of Prague and graduated from the University of Economics in Prague in 1963 and also spent some time at Cornell University in the United States — is not meant in any way to disparage the genuine humanity and good intentions of Mr Klaus, who despite his views on climate change, is, in the estimation of this blog, a fine and upstanding citizen of Planet Earth, with or without a climate crisis on its hands. We like the man, and we love his country. Kafka would be proud of these awards, we are sure!

END DISCLAIMER

Posted by dan at 11:05 PM 34 comments

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